It's a Sorry State Of Affairs When You Don't Know How to Apologize

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 1, 2001

Have you ever made a mistake? "Sure," you might say. "I'm human. We all make mistakes." In that case, this should be an easy question: When was the last time you admitted making a mistake?

No, you can't serve waffles with this breakfast. We're looking for the time when you actually said the words "I was wrong" or "I blew it" or - for extra credit - "I am pond scum."

Saying the words in a foreign language is fine, but don't attach your mea culpa to a 3,000-word explanation. And it can't be for something meaningless, either, like "I should have asked to make sure the chef's surprise wasn't really twice-baked poi. I blew it."

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Admitting a mistake is viewed as a sign of weakness. Not only did you do something wrong, but it was so bad that you have to acknowledge just how bad it was. Showing weakness is not a good strategy in the business world.

But admitting a mistake can also be a sign of strength, if you handle it well. As any world traveler will tell you, life is simpler if you don't have a lot of baggage.

In his book, "The Fearless Executive," Alan Downs says that many insecure executives will try to bulldoze a mistake by pointing more workers and money at the problem, eventually making it look like a marginal success on paper. At the same time, however, if the executive had simply admitted the mistake and moved on, the workers and money could have been put to better use.

"At the core of our fantasy about being an infallible hero is the fear of inadequacy," Downs writes. "We fear ourselves to be weak, and therefore spend our time trying to prove to ourselves and others that we are strong. Our fantasy of perfection is driven by a belief in our own inadequacy."

Whatever the cause, the reluctance to admit mistakes can destroy reputations, if not careers. No matter what Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon accomplished, their reputations will always be clouded by their mistakes and lies.

They did what a lot of workers do: They tried to pretend a mistake didn't exist, then kept trying to explain it away until reality finally buried them.

When reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein covered the Watergate scandal, they came up with a great phrase for some of the things that Nixon's people said: "a non-denial denial." Rather than address the specifics of any alleged improprieties, they would either attack the reporters or praise Nixon's record or raise some other side issue.

Workers sometimes do that when they apologize. Instead of saying "I'm sorry" and being done with it, they will give some rambling justification for what they did, then conclude by saying something like, "If that upset you, I'm sorry."

That's a non-apology apology. It makes it sound as if the listener has some skewed perception of reality, rather than that the speaker is sorry for a mistake.

Once in a while, people go to the other extreme. If you apologize too much, you can be seen as an incompetent worker - or at least someone who will never be a leader. When you're wrong, by all means apologize, but don't get into the habit of saying "I'm sorry" for something you have no control over, such as bad weather or a broken copy machine or a sick colleague.

Maybe the biggest career mistakes, however, are ones that don't involve apologizing to anyone. You have to admit that you made a wrong decision or chose a wrong path, or even simply that someone else had a better idea than you did.

Maybe you did make a good decision, but the circumstances have changed. It's like buying a stock at $90 and seeing that it's at $10 today. Should you admit you were wrong and sell it? Or should you stubbornly hold on to the stock, harrumphing to yourself that it's a long-term investment that will bounce back?

If you ignore the tax consequences, your real question is: Would you buy the stock for $10 today? If you would, keep it. If not, don't.

It's the same with people who get stuck in the wrong job. Maybe back in their pimply-faced days, they chose some major in college that led them to a wonderful career. But things have changed, and they're a long way from the acne and the ecstasy.

Deep down, they know their stock will keep dropping, but sometimes it's just too hard to let go.